


I Got You, Babe (or, Roman Roy's kindergarten graduation)

by IronyisOkay



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, I watched Palm Springs and it was good, also Groundhog Day is one of my favorite movies, things sort of went from there
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:41:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25702996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IronyisOkay/pseuds/IronyisOkay
Summary: Roman Roy wakes up on the morning of February 5, 2019, with a pounding headache and the sound of Sonny & Cher in his ears.He suffers through his sister's wedding from hell, has normo sex with his normo girlfriend, tries desperately to win his general counsel's attention, and only loses a couple of thumbs in the whole sordid affair. Not a bad day's work.Until he wakes up the next morning and it's February 5, 2019. And the morning after that. And the morning after that.Okay! It's fine, it's okay. Break the spell, win the princess, become a real little boy and ride off into the sunset. Nothing he can't do.
Relationships: Gerri Kellman/Roman "Romulus" Roy, Roman "Romulus" Roy/Tabitha
Comments: 21
Kudos: 45





	1. Chapter 1

Roman Roy wakes up on the morning of February 5, 2019, with a pounding headache and the sound of Sonny & Cher in his ears. 

He’s always adjusted to time zones relatively well - he’s used to getting six hours of sleep, and if he falls asleep at 1 a.m. EST or 5 a.m. EST, it doesn’t matter, he wakes up after six hours either way. But the joint he smoked and the four Bloody Marys he inhaled aren’t making his morning any easier and he’s got a pounding headache that’s only exacerbated by the sweet, sweet sounds of Tabitha’s alarm. He groans and pulls his pillow over his head, wondering if it’s possible to suffocate himself with it before the infernal song finishes. 

“BABE--” Tabitha is singing now and he pulls the pillow off his head long enough to see her spinning in the bathroom, hairbrush firmly in hand for a makeshift microphone. “Baaaaabe. I got you, babe.” She tries to coax him to sing with a flap of her hand and he grunts, “Makeitstop,” before shoving the pillow back over his head again.

“Hey, best man, c’mon. Don’t you have somewhere to be? Like, y’know, the groom’s room? Help him do up his cufflinks, threaten him within an inch of his life if he leaves your sister at the altar? All that jazz?”

“If he leaves Shiv at the altar I will hand deliver a bottle of the best wine in Brooklyn as a thank you. He’ll be fine, he’s got the fucking - Fly Guys or whatever, and if he can’t button his own shirt he isn’t old enough to get married.” He waves a dismissive hand and begins the arduous process of dragging himself to the shower. “And turn that song off, it’s fuckin’ terrible. Who has that as their alarm? God, if I knew you had such terrible taste in music I wouldn’t have invited you, you know.” 

“Who pissed in your coffee this morning?” she asks with an arch of one sharp brow, arms crossed, leaning with her back against the bathroom counter as she watches him struggle with the shower knobs. 

“What the fuck - why aren’t these universal?” he grumbles to disguise his guilt at snapping at her. He’s fidgety, nervous, praying she won’t say anything about the offer he made her the night before. It was a mistake, it was reckless, it was an honest, desperate plea. The sympathy in her voice last night was enough to make him want to scream, to make him want to act out, do something violent, bash her head in with a fireplace poker, choke her against the wall, throw her out the fucking window. He didn’t. He’s not a fucking monster. He just yanked at his shoelace until it broke, because everything breaks eventually and judging by the way things are going with Tabitha this morning, his relationship is probably already broken. 

“Here, let me help.” Her voice is still tinged with that same sick note of pity (Poor little rich boy - probably never even had to turn on his own fucking shower. Probably has a servant whose only job is to make sure Roman Roy stays relatively well scrubbed. Poor stupid Romulus.). She tries to join him in the shower and he nearly slams her hand in the glass door hinge trying to keep her out.

Not an auspicious start to the day. But hey! It’s cool. He’s got a rocket launch in t-minus ten hours and a future brother-in-law to terrorize, it’s going to be a good wedding. 

He’s humming a funeral dirge as he walks down the hall to breakfast, steps firm and deliberate, and he knows that he probably should have done the gentleman thing and waited for his girlfriend to finish getting ready, but fuck it, no one needs that many coats of mascara. Her choice. Besides. He’s got a new target. He loads his plate up with pastries and strawberries and six slices of bacon and wanders over to the object of his interest, sliding into the seat across from her. 

“Hey, Fairy Godlawyer, looking as radiant as ever. How do you do it?” He waits for Gerri’s attention, waits for her to flick him away like a bug on her windshield. It doesn’t come. “Hey. Hey.” He throws the wrapper from his straw at her, waits for her to look up from her laptop. “Aren’t you going to eat anything?”

“You ask me this every time we’re in the same hotel, and every time, what do I say?” It’s a nonresponse. No, worse than a nonresponse, it’s a response where he’s expected to think for himself. Disgusting. He’s into it. He always did have a thing for women who couldn’t give a shit if he lived or died. Just shove his head into the scrambled eggs and wait for some poor underpaid waitstaff to find him there. 

“You say you’re just waiting for me to invite myself to your room to feed you grapes like a probably racist stereotype of a Middle Eastern princess in a movie.” 

“That is not at all what I say. I’m not much for breakfast.” She finally looks up, blue eyes as cool and calculating as ever. He hopes his tie is on straight. He left before Tabitha could give him a once over. “Do you need something, or am I the unlucky soul tasked with being Roman Roy’s babysitter this morning?”

“I - hey,” he protests, screwing up his face, gremlin-like. “I’m fucking 35 years old.”

“Act like it,” she says simply and he slouches in his seat, kicking at the legs of her chair.

“If you must know, Glinda the good witch, it’s about my launch. It’s today, y’know.”

He’s met with an eyeroll and a sip of probably lukewarm coffee before she responds. “I think the entire city of New York knows it’s today, Roman. Pretty sure you talk in your sleep about it.”

“And how would you know that, huh?” he counters. “You creeping in after I’m asleep to watch me, sleep paralysis demon Edward Cullen style? Very molesty of you.” He can tell from the blank look on her face that she doesn’t recognize the reference so he mumbles that it’s not important and moves on. “Okay - I want to show it at the reception. Like….a fireworks thing, yeah? Boom, pretty colors, fire, ooh, yay, look, Roman did a thing, Roman’s not a fuckup, Roman loves his baby sister, applause, bow, drop the mic and get out of that bitch. Yes?” 

“No.”

It’s hurtful that she doesn’t even have to think about it. He leans forward, elbows on the table, but only for a second because he can hear his mother’s voice in his mind, telling him, “Sit up, Ro-Ro, you’re better than that, I didn’t give birth to Quasimodo.”

“Look, Shiv will like it. I’ve already talked to her about it and she’s like - halfway into it, I think. And I think if you were on board, she would be doubly into it and two times a half is--”

“A quarter. Why don’t you fuck off back to kindergarten?”

He gets the picture, stuffs a donut in his mouth, gives her the middle finger, and takes his plate to a far corner of the dining room to wait for Tabitha. 

He has to admit, the wedding is surprisingly nice, which makes him positive Shiv had absolutely nothing to do with it. He fidgets through the ceremony, poised just to Tom’s right, sticks his tongue out at Tabitha, who laughs, and Gerri, who doesn’t, and for a touching finale to the whole affair, rips at a hangnail until it bleeds and ends up with blood on his dress shirt. Fuck.

He’s in the bathroom washing it out while Tom and Shiv take pictures and he comes out slightly wrinkled and very damp to find his mother lurking outside the door, a haunting, eerily thin menace in his path. He tries to dodge, but she’s already exclaimed, “Ro-Ro!” and caught him by the back of the shirt collar, hauling him back. She’s a good three inches taller than him - four and a half with heels - and her statures does nothing to diminish the feeling that he’ll always be a useless little boy in his mother’s eyes. 

“Hi, Mommy,” he says miserably, the still bleeding finger finding its way to his mouth. 

“Roman,” she says, severe, judgmental, and he uneasily pushes his hand into his pocket to keep it away from his teeth. “Better. Good boy. We’re all quite excited about your rocket launch, you know. But we were all so certain it wasn’t supposed to be for another month and a half?” 

“Yeah, well--” He rubs the back of his neck, stares down at his feet and shrugs. “I thought it would be nice, y’know? For Shiv? Like - a firework type of thing. Cool stuff, right?” 

She bares her teeth at that, a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes, and he stretches his own lips into some semblance of happiness. “Well. I certainly hope nothing happens to disrupt it. Sounds like you had your work cut out for you with the rush,” she says cheerfully before releasing him, and he doesn’t have any idea what he’s supposed to do with that information. Like, was that a threat? What the fuck is she on about?

Three hours later and he’s back in the bathroom, one phone to his ear and one in his hand, watching his beloved rocket explode on the launchpad. Fuck. Mommy was right.

The next few hours are a blur of panic and ringing phones and forcing himself to be a fuckin’ amazing wedding-guest-slash-best-man when he can remember to breathe. He gives a speech he doesn’t remember as soon as he sits back down, full of too-personal details that he probably shouldn’t have shared, he drinks three martinis because his stomach isn’t working well enough for anything but alcohol, and he’s seated at a round table staring off into the distance when Gerri Kellman herself, the most beautiful woman in the world, delivers the most wonderful words he’s ever heard in his life, including the day when he almost got kicked out of college but didn’t-- 

“Two guys lost thumbs and there might be an arm they won’t be able to save--”

He could kiss her. Thinks about it too, actually, wonders what will happen if he does, just - jumps to his feet and presses his lips to hers, claims he was just overcome with joy and prays Tabitha doesn’t give a shit. She won’t. Wouldn’t, he means. Theoretically. He’s always had a feeling she tastes like cinnamon.

He doesn’t listen to a thing she says after thumbs, just feels the weight melt off of him and practically howls with delight. He babbles to Tabitha about how he’s not actually a psychopath because would a psychopath be unable to eat their filet mignon if they thought they blew up everyone on board a rocket ship? Probably not! Things are good, he’s going to be normal, he’s going to have normo sex with his girlfriend like a real boy and all it cost was a couple of thumbs! 

He tugs Tabitha off to their room but not before casting a fervent glance over his shoulder, trying to gauge Gerri’s reaction. She’s standing there, biting her bottom lip, arms crossed over her chest, and the sight is enough to make him pause to press a fat fucking kiss to Tabitha’s mouth, dipping her to reach. He grins, scrunches his index finger at her in a mockery of a wave, and watches her roll her eyes and turn on one kitten heel. Good. Give the old gal something to touch herself to tonight instead of CSPAN or whatever the fuck.

The sex is...fine. Probably on the bad end of fine. Three out of ten, but hey, that means it could have been worse. He wonders what’s broken inside his brain that he has a knockout of a girlfriend in his bed, all blonde and legs and boobs, but when he closes his eyes it’s not her face he pictures in the darkness. But then they’re tangled up in bed and giggling while they’re fixing each other’s clothing afterwards and he thinks he could maybe have mediocre sex with a girl he really fucking cares about for the rest of his life, and he tries to shove ocean blue eyes out of his mind. He wonders if Tabitha would ever call him a kindergartner and if his body would betray him if she did. 

They emerge from their room and follow the music back to the party. Half his family seems to be missing which is odd, but whatever, he’s not their babysitter. If Kendall wants to do coke off his ex-wife’s hair straightener, that’s none of his business. He wants to dance with his consummated girlfriend and drink until he can’t see straight. Thumbs! Just fucking thumbs! It’s the best day of his life.

He asks Gerri to dance three times. She says no three times and he watches the fond amusement in her eyes dim each time, replaced with irritation. “What, was this your dead husband’s favorite song or something?” he asks. No harm in poking the bear, see if he gets claws in his throat. She doesn’t bite, just says, “Grow up, Roman,” picks up her phone and walks away, leaving a sick feeling of shame to bubble in his chest. He doesn’t dance anymore after that.

He changes Tabitha’s phone alarm to Dancing Queen before he goes to sleep, accompanied by another snide quip about he thought he wasn’t dating such a fucking lame-ass geek. 

He wakes up to Sonny & Cher. 

“I fuckin’ told you to change that,” he groans, just a flock of messy dark hair peeking out from under the covers. “I set it for you, did you seriously change it back? Fuck you!”

“No you didn’t,” she calls from the bathroom, hairbrush in hand, and a nauseating feeling of deja vu sweeps over him. “BABE--”

“God, shut up, my head is killing me.” He pulls the covers back over his head, only to have them ripped off unceremoniously, leaving him shivering and annoyed. 

“Hey, best man, c’mon. Don’t you have somewhere to be? Like, y’know, the groom’s room? Help him do up his cufflinks, threaten him within an inch of his life if he leaves your sister at the altar? All that jazz?”

He squints at her in confusion at that, sitting up on his elbows. “Are you - at the altar? You know that was yesterday, right? The wedding was yesterday? We’re leaving at noon?”

“Babe.” She pecks his lips and ruffles his hair, ever fond of stupid little Romulus. “Should have cut you off after three Bloody Marys. Get up, I’m not taking the blame if you’re late to some touching family photo opp.”

He fumbles to unplug his phone from the nightstand charger, rolling his eyes as he glances at the screen, determined to prove to her that he’s right, that she can’t possibly have forgotten an entire wedding. 

“What, did I fuck the memory out of y--” he starts to say, but the words stick in his throat as he stares at the glowing letters on his screen.

Friday, February 5, 2019.

What the--

“Fuck.”


	2. Chapter 2

He calls Tabitha a liar in about six different ways as he’s headed out the door, phone tucked into his pocket, still barefoot and wild-eyed and hair sticking up every which way. He’s had moments of dissociation before where he can’t remember if he’s eaten breakfast or sent an email he’s supposed to or momentarily forgotten what day it was, but this is different, this is the longest period of time he’s ever hallucinated and he’s still not positive that he’s not dreaming. He doesn’t know where he’s going, maybe his mother’s room? Maybe Gerri’s room--no, not Gerri’s room. Too early for that kind of put down. Maybe he just needs air. Cold air would be nice on his face, something to snap him out of whatever the hell is wrong with his useless brain this time. 

“Hey - Roman, hey--” The sycophant suckup himself, Tommy Wams, groom extraordinaire catches him by the shoulders as he rounds a corner, saving them from full on collision. “Is that what you’re planning to wear to my wedding?” he asks pointedly, and Roman looks down at his sweatpants, squirming to free himself from Tom’s grip on his arms.

“Let go - I’m sort of busy,” he grumbles, because it’s easier than trying to explain that he’s lost his grip on reality and he’s probably hallucinating. “Wait - holdonholdon. Didn’t you get married yesterday? You got married yesterday, yeah? You got married and then you cried at dinner and you cried through the toasts and then you probably cried last night while you were fucking my sister? You remember that, don’t you?”

Tom’s face scrunches into the perfect model of confusion - it matches the emotions flashcards that Roman’s first therapist gave him that he lost out the car window on his way home from the appointment. “Roman? Buddy? I know you’ve been under a lot of stress with the launch but it is my wedding day and I’m going to need you to not be a fucking weirdo and grow up for like….twelve hours, is that understood?”

Roman wrenches away from him without answering and takes off running down the hall. He doesn’t have any plan in mind except to run, and run fast and far. The castle is big but it’s not that big - he’s looped around three times, dodging wedding guests, catering staff, narrowly avoiding a collision with Marcia’s simp of a son, and, as usual, he ends up betrayed by his subconscious, standing in front of the door of the only person in the castle who will give him a straight answer and tell him if the entire world is playing an elaborate prank on him for its own callous amusement. 

“--You.”

He had been standing there, fist raised, prepared to knock, forehead pressed against the soothingly cool wooden door when it swung open, sending him tumbling forward onto hands and knees. Gerri stands above him, arms crossed, clothed only in a silk dressing gown, regarding him with a mixture of chilly amusement and irritation. He wonders if there’s anything on underneath the robe.

“Mm. Me,” he agrees, scrambling to his feet and brushing off his sweats from imaginary lint. “Someone order a strippogram? I’m real cheap, I bet even a lowly GC like yourself could afford my services.” He thrusts his hips forward once, watches the corner of her mouth twitch despite her best efforts. 

“What do you need, Roman?” Ah. So that’s how they’re going to play it. No nonsense, no fuss, straight to the point.

His gaze drops to the hairbrush in her right hand and back up to her hair, which is loosely curled and framing her face nicely. He has a deja vu moment that sends him reeling, sees her in his mind’s eye later that day, hair tucked up into an elegant updo, and before he can stop himself, he blurts out, “You should leave it down. Today. I don’t - I don’t get to see it down much, I really like it, um.” He swallows, shakes his head and then his arms out, a full body shudder. “Sorry. Put it up! Whatever the fuck, I don’t fucking care, that’s not why I’m here, not important. Put it up if you want.” 

He bites his bottom lip and eyes her expression, watches her face soften as she says, “Thank you, Roman, I, uh, I’ll consider that.” She sets the hairbrush aside and perches on the edge of the bed, ankles crossed neatly. His gaze follows the hairbrush and he wonders exactly what he would have to do to get her to put her over his knee like a naughty schoolboy and smack his ass with it. 

“Ah - yeah, um, anyway, I said that’s not why I’m here, so, shut up and let me talk, yeah?” He’s running his hands through his hair, desperately trying to smooth it back into position, and he knows he must look ridiculous, standing in front of her barefoot, still in his pajamas, a mad prophet coming to deliver news of the future to those who care to hear it. 

“...go on.” She squints, clearly wary.

“Jesus Christ, I’m not going to confess my love or anything like that - calm down,” he gets out in exasperation, beginning to pace the floor in little circles to avoid meeting those painfully blue eyes. “Okay, um, this sounds like I’m insane. And I am, obviously I am, look at me! But um, I already like, lived this day? Like I remember the whole wedding, I woke up yesterday and it was February 5 and - and now I’m here and I woke up this morning and thesamefuckingsong was playing and I had the same fucking conversation with Tabs and now like - fuck. I don’t know what’s happening except I could tell you the whole day. The whole fucking day. Just - fuck, Ger.” He’s ready to get on his knees and beg for her to believe him, clasp the hem of her robe between his hands, be her dog, whatever it takes. 

“I think,” she says carefully, and he can tell that she’s trying to be gentle with him, probably pities him - fuck, why does everybody pity him? Does he have a sign around his neck - “Humor him, he’s feeble minded” or whatever politically correct term is popular these days? “I think that you probably had a very elaborate dream brought on by too many oysters last night and now you’re drawing connections and coincidences where they weren’t before. Are you positive that you had the exact same interaction with Tabitha?”

There’s something reassuring in her tone, as she tries to knit together a logical explanation, always practical, and he hesitates before shaking his head, hair flopping over his forehead. “Umm. No. No, not really, I guess. Like, who remembers if a conversation was word for word? I’m not a psychopath.”

“We’ll see about that,” she says and that stings a little, enough that he starts backing for the doorframe. 

“Fuck off, I’m not.” He twists the doorknob - it sticks and he has to yank it, nearly falling out into the hallway as he does so. “You don’t even know me,” he hisses, sticking his face back through the doorway.

“For heaven’s sake, can you crack the door or something? I don’t need the entire wedding party seeing in my dressing gown,” she complains, and he’s tempted to throw it wide open but he obeys instead, leaving just enough space for his neck to fit through as he makes a crude comment about how the entire wedding party doesn’t know what they’re missing. 

“You don’t know me either,” she says, turning to swipe blush over her cheeks. Before he can protest she’s speaking again, cutting him off. “No. Don’t speak. Answer me this, what are my daughters’ names? Where did I go to law school? How many years have I worked for Waystar? - without Googling, please.” 

He shoves his phone back into his pocket, guilt written all over his thin face. “I -”

Rather than confess he has no idea how to answer a single one of her questions, rather than uselessly bullshit himself into a deeper hole, he flees, slamming the door behind him. Who does she think she is, asking him questions like that? Arrogant, conniving, annoyingly logical - he doesn’t need her. He’ll figure this out on his own. 

The wedding ceremony is exactly the same, down to Tom’s loud sniffling through the church. Gerri’s hair is down, curls at her shoulders, and watching them bounce every time she shifts slightly in her seat is enough to take his mind off of his predicament. See - that’s something different! Maybe she was right, maybe he was imagining everything. Maybe it was just a weird one-day thing, like when you hear a new word and then hear it everywhere for the next day. He wants to pin her against the wall, kiss her throat, grab a fistful of beautiful curls and tug, hear her moan because of him. Maybe if he’s very lucky and very good she’ll flip them, push him up against the stone instead, hiss in his ear what a filthy, disgusting little brat he is--

“I now pronounce you husband and wife,” the priest says, which snaps him out of his reverie long enough to stick two fingers in his mouth and whistle, piercing enough to break glass, the one good thing he learned from boarding school.

Probably just a weird one day thing.

“So.” He’s back to Gerri’s side the moment they’re done with picture taking, which seems even longer than it did yesterday, and during which he refuses to make a single normal face. “So uh, did you do something new with the uh, with the face?” He’s got Tabitha in tow, their fingers intertwined, and he wonders if Gerri has ever had a threesome before. “Different lipstick maybe?” He taps his chin in mock thoughtfulness, scrunching up his face. “Hmm, hmm, hmm. Oh! I know. You’re finally wearing something that isn’t straight off the rack at Belk.” Tabitha smiles politely, the same smile that she gives him when she’s debating whether or not to pinch him for bad behavior under the table. Won’t work. 

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Gerri asks pointedly, and it’s then that he feels his phone vibrating through his jacket pocket. He looks at the clock and sees it’s ticking just past four.

“Shi-it.” 

The rocket explodes. Again. Because Roman Roy was too fucking busy making eyes at his general counsel to call it off.

He runs through the ethics of the situation in his head. Technically - technically, he couldn’t have known what would happen. He was dreaming yesterday, yes? Yes. It’s only coincidence that the rocket exploded just like it did in his dream. Certainly no one could prove he’s a fucking prophet or whatever the fuck, John the Baptist in a Tom Ford suit.

But if he did - if he did actually live out the same day yesterday, and he knew that the rocket was going to explode, then that’s bad. Like, really bad. Like, fast lane on the highway to hell bad.

Oh, but if it’s the same explosion as yesterday, that’s totally fine then, because-- 

“It’s cool! It’s only a couple of thumbs! We aren’t going to ruin a party over a couple of thumbs, are we?”

It’s a great night. He kills his speech, avoids Gerri’s questions about how he can possibly know that it’s only a couple of thumbs (oh, and an arm, mustn’t forget the arm!) so soon after the explosion, makes up some shit about how he’s psychic and that’s how he can tell she’s wearing red panties, and grins as she rolls her eyes in annoyance. When the call from Japan comes through to confirm his claim, he can tell she’s turning over the idea in her mind, wondering if there’s any truth to any of his story from that morning. He ducks back into the crowd before she can question him further. It’s fine, he’s sure it was a one off thing anyway. Tomorrow will be back to normal, he just needs a good night’s sleep.

He doesn’t bring up sex to Tabitha that night. If he’s really having the same day over again, he doesn’t particularly feel like reliving those twenty agonizing minutes with nothing to show for it at the end. Besides, Rome didn’t learn to fuck in a day, or whatever the saying is. 

He sets her alarm before bed to Dancing Queen and wakes up to I Got You Babe. 

How peachy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted this to be out days ago but my internet has been V E R Y spotty and making writing impossible! ANYWAY. Here you go! Hope you enjoyed your day more than Roman enjoyed his!


	3. Chapter 3

On day three he steals a bus. It’s one of those fucking massive tourist bus things that Tom’s entire family and a few strangers he’s sure snuck in on, as a matter of fact, big and hulking and hopefully fast enough to get him out of this godforsaken castle where time apparently stands still. 

It’s easy enough, the keys are dangling from the useless driver’s belt, and all it takes is a grand flashed between his fingers, a transfer from his hand to the driver’s wallet, and voila, the keys are in Roman’s grip instead. Money is a sort of magic, he thinks idly as he climbs into the driver’s seat. The first step is too high and he wheezes as he hoists himself up, realizing how undignified he must look. Whatever. If he escapes whatever the hell this time loop is, he’ll have bigger problems, like, uh, missing his sister’s wedding, and if he doesn’t escape then no one will remember as soon as he wakes up on February 5th again anyway. 

He waves cheerily to passing catering staff as he carefully maneuvers the bus out of its parking spot, unable to see out of the rearview mirror due to his stature and unsure how to adjust it. Pulling forward, he hits the gas and the bus lurches through the front gates, scraping all the way down the left hand side on the brick wall and making a sound that sets his teeth on edge. That’ll leave a mark. Whatever, he’ll just throw more cash at it later to get it buffed out. He fiddles with the radio station, flipping past some radio program called The Archers that he vaguely remembers listening to as a child, top 40 bullshit, and eventually finds an Eagles song that he leaves it on for lack of a better option. 

“Welcome to the Hotel California--” Don Henley croons, and Roman immediately yelps, “Nope!” and spins the tuning dial. 

He wakes up to the sound of steady, high pitched beeping and the sensation that his arm is no longer attached to his body. But hey! Not Sonny & Cher. Good start.

“Whatthefuck,” he says, and even though it’s practically screaming in his head, it’s a barely audible mumble when the words leave his throat. When he opens his eyes he’s staring at a grey tile ceiling. He shifts, trying to sit up, trying to evaluate his surroundings, because the last thing he remembers is Hotel California and the bus and the--

“Dog. There was a dog.” He twists and pain shoots up his arm, enough to make him cry out and fall back against the pillows, his back arching as he tries to find a position that provides some form of relief. So his arm does exist. That’s good news, he thinks. He grits his teeth and squeezes his eyes shut as a wave of nausea rushes over him, and he nearly sobs when it finally leaves, when his head stops swimming and he can open his eyes again. He’s in a hospital, he knows that much. And his ribs hurt and his head hurts and his leg hurts and there’s an IV stuck in his arm and a blood pressure thingy that he doesn’t know the name for clamped onto his finger and he wants to cry because it’s too much pain hitting him at once for him to take in, but he’s not going to cry because he’s a big boy and because he just realized that Gerri Kellman is sitting in the chair next to his bed. 

“Hey. Hey, hey, hey.” She reaches out her hand for him and he takes it before he even realizes what he’s doing. It’s more contact than he’s ever had with her in his life and it makes his heartbeat suddenly jump to his fingertips. Her hands are soft and cooler than he expected. He wonders if his hand is sweaty and then wonders what the fuck is wrong with him that he can literally be in the hospital, maybe on death’s door from the way his body feels, and he worried about sweaty hands. His stupid brain was already broken before...whatever happened to him, and whatever accident he had doesn’t seem to have helped. “Shh. Hey, you’re okay, listen to me, Roman. You’re okay.” 

“I am?” he asks, voice pitifully small. “I don’t feel - I don’t feel very okay. I feel like I got run over by a - bus!” His eyes go wide and he tightens his grip on her hand, desperate. “What happened to the bus? Did I crash the bus? I remember the bus and I remember this greyhound coming out of nowhere - not a Greyhound Bus, like a literal greyhound. The dog. Anyway, I remember the stupid dog and now I’m here and everything hurts. What happened?” 

She clears her throat and for a second he thinks she’s about to pull her hand away, tuck it back into her lap and pretend that they never touched. It’s enough to make a sob catch in his throat and he holds on tighter, squeezing her fingers until she makes a little noise of discomfort. “Well, I got a call this morning that you were missing and then another one five minutes later saying never mind, you definitely weren’t missing anymore, you were in a toppled over bus halfway between the castle and the village, unconscious, with a pretty nasty bump on your head, a broken ankle, three broken ribs, and a cracked radius. The dog obviously didn’t make it but uh, you did, so that’s something. The owner is rightly furious.” Her mouth twists in an expression he can’t recognize, something like relief, but that can’t possibly be right. Not when he fucked up this badly. It’s gone before he has time to contemplate it further and his head hurts so he just nods and leans back against the pillows, still holding her hand.

“So they….the wedding?” It’s not really a question but she’ll understand what he means. 

“Yeah. Yeah, the wedding. Yeah, they’re still going through with it, because you aren’t going to die, you’re just going to have to stay here for a day or so for monitoring, so it wasn’t worth rescheduling everything..” Her expression shifts again, this time into the contemptuous look he recognizes easily. It’s not aimed at him though, he knows it’s directed more towards his entire worthless family, and he rests a little more assuredly at thought. “Sorry, Rome. I know you probably wanted to be at your sister’s wedding, I’m sorry this happened.” 

“I’ll make her next one,” he says, too cheerful, and he overcorrects, plastering a dramatic frown onto his face instead. “Sorry. I just meant - I feel like I’ve already seen it. I’ll give you the speech I wrote, it’s in my nightstand drawer, you can read it and do a funny voice and it’ll be just as good. Probably better.” 

She smiles at that and brushes a lock of dark hair away from his face, her brows knit together in what he imagines is something like concern, if Gerri Kellman has ever been concerned about anything that wasn’t strictly a business deal in her life. He’s certainly never seen her cry, no one at Waystar has, so he must be imagining that her eyes are suspiciously shiny because of the lights, or the pain meds, or a thousand other reasons. The pain meds aren’t working. He wants more. He wonders if she can get him more. He thinks she can probably do anything she’s ever set her mind to. 

“Mm, no,” she says, busily straightening the neck of his hospital gown, always keeping him in order. “I think you’re going to rest up and get better and give the speech at their anniversary party, how does that sound?”

“Yes, Mommy,” he says, because he wants the tearful look in her eyes turned to amusement or revulsion, or whatever she’s feeling towards him today. It works, she rolls her eyes towards the ceiling and blinks hard. He grins, the first smile since he woke up. “You gonna nurse me back to health then? You gonna - Florence Nightingale me? Feed me chicken soup and take my vitals and stick a thermometer up my ass?”

“I think they have ones that go in your mouth now - don’t!” she says fiercely and he bites back a thousand smart comments, looking up at her with innocent eyes. 

She’s lucky they’re interrupted when they are because he’s on the verge of running his mouth again as a nurse tears through the door, eyeing his heart rate monitor in alarm. Turns out that the very act of holding stupid Gerri Kellman’s stupid fucking hand was enough to send his heartrate skyrocketing over 120, triggering some sort of alarm? He doesn’t know. It’s enough to make him pull his hand away and burrow further under his scratchy blanket, cheeks flushed in mortification as Gerri explains what happened to the highly amused nurse, leaving him to wallow in his embarrassment. 

The nurse leaves after learning he’s fine, leaving them to stare at each other in silence, Roman still pink down his neck, Gerri with one eyebrow raised. 

“So…” 

“No.” 

“No, that was, uh, that was interesting. I should let you rest.” 

He wants to protest, wants to latch onto her arm and drag her back, doesn’t want to be left alone in this big and freezing hospital while his entire family is partying it up at his sister’s wedding, but he also doesn’t want to be a fucking baby. Decisions. 

She makes it easy for him, sweeps his hair back from his face and presses her lips to her forehead, light enough that he could almost believe he imagined the action. She cups his cheek and runs her thumb over his jaw, an unexpected tenderness in the motion, and it’s a beautiful distraction from his still throbbing ribs. “Go to sleep, Roman. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

He tries his hardest to stay awake because he doesn’t know how to explain that no she won’t, that this day will just start all over again and that he’s trapped in this hell hole forever. If he tries to tell her she’ll probably just chalk it up to the pain meds, he’s delusional, and maybe he is! Maybe this was all just a horrible nightmare and he’ll wake up and it’ll be February 6th after all. The longer he can stay awake, the longer he has with her before the day restarts again. He looks over with the last of his strength, watches her settle into the chair by his bed and fish her iPad out of her giant bag, ever the workaholic. 

“Hey...did my mom like...care?” he asks, closing his eyes. He can just listen to her, he thinks, he’ll stay awake if she talks to him. 

“Hmm?” She glances up, the rim of her glasses catching the light. “Oh, yeah. Worried herself sick but you know how it goes, mother of the bride couldn’t very well miss the wedding.” 

They both know she’s lying. 

“Oh. Well. I didn’t think godmothers could very well miss the wedding either.” 

“Yeah, well.” He opens one eye enough to see her give him a soft, fond smile. He thinks he could live off of her smiles alone, like some sort of ecofriendly bionic man. “Someone has to pick up your poor broken pieces, don’t they?”

His last thought before he passes out again is how her lips are softer than he ever imagined. 

He wakes up to Tabitha singing Sonny & Cher. The pain is gone, which is a plus. Gerri won’t remember a thing, which isn’t.

He skips the wedding. Locks himself in a bathroom in a far corner of the castle where hopefully no one will walk in on him and presses himself against the stall door, digging his phone out of his tuxedo pocket. 

“Wikipedia.com SEARCH:Gerri Kellman”

Time to get to work.


End file.
